


every victory has a taste that's bittersweet

by wolfchester



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: F/M, Gen, character study of john murphy, did i mention i love murphy?? yes, i love murphy so much
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-12-04
Updated: 2014-12-03
Packaged: 2018-02-28 02:01:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 737
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2714858
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wolfchester/pseuds/wolfchester
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Murphy knows lots of words.</p><p>(alternatively titled: John Murphy Gets The Redemption Arc He Needs)</p>
            </blockquote>





	every victory has a taste that's bittersweet

**Author's Note:**

> this was inspired by a story by the lovely julia (jamiemoriarty) called 'when stars are the only things we share' ♡ https://archiveofourown.org/works/2581361

**0\. prologue**

_(n.) an event or act that leads to another_

 

* * *

 

Twelve years old is John's age when he steals his first book from the Ark library and sneaks it back to his family's apartment. It's by a man called William Goulding and is named 'Lord of the Flies'. He reads night upon night about these boys surviving on a faraway island, part of him wishing that he could do that. That he could escape the steel walls of the Ark and explore the world outside.

When he finishes, he is hungry for more. The next five years are spent devouring word after word, making friends with people he's never met and who don't exist except only on paper. He read about rulers of kingdoms, of warlords and death, of love and romance and things such as these.

The last book he reads is when he is seventeen. It's called 'Shaker, Why Don't You Sing?' by a woman named Maya Angelou. A collection of poems written in 1983. His favourite is 'Caged Bird', which speaks about oppression and freedom, contrasting points on the scale of humanity, words that speak life into his tired, young bones.

 

_"The caged bird sings_

_with a fearful trill_

_of things unknown_

_but longed for still_

_and his tune is heard_

_on the distant hill_

_for the caged bird_

_sings of freedom."_

 

It's the last book he reads before he catches the flu, before his father steals medicine to aid his beloved son, before screaming silence as he watches his father's face slip away into the black. Before finding his mother, face-up in a pool of her own vomit, raspy, dying voice filling his ears: _"You killed your father!"_

Before he snaps one day, months of pain coming to a head, bursting through the pressure in his muscles and pounding heartbeat in his veins. He strangles a guard almost to the point of death, is pulled away by various others, then locked in a small room with a padlock on the door and no windows.

There are three other boys in his compartment. The first is a young, scared, nameless little thing who was the product of an accidental second pregnancy. The second and third: two fourteen-year-old boys who thought it would be a good idea to break into the apartment of one of the Commanders and steal a years worth of food rations.

I guess John was in that cell for four months to try and become a better human being, to be regretful of his crime so that when his eighteenth birthday came, he would be up for reconsideration and free from suffering the same fate that his father had. I guess that he was meant to become someone better than he was. He didn't. If anything, he just became worse. More resentful, angry, tired (so tired).

John Murphy is the caged bird centuries-old Maya Angelou wrote about. The words echo throughout his mind as he sits in that prison cell for all that time, and he scratches the words: _"The caged bird sings of freedom"_ into the metal paneling with a rusty fork.

Everything changes when Bellamy Blake gets thrown into the cell with them. He's tall, lean, with a fire in his eyes that, frankly, scares John a little. _He shot the Chancellor_ , come the whispers through the cracks in the walls. _He did it for his sister_ , say the stars.

One day later, there's a drop ship, a message: _"Don't die."_ Then rocket thrusters, jolting motions, darkness.

Two kids die on impact. The blonde girl that Spacewalker nicknames 'Princess', the one with the screechy voice and higher-than-thou attitude, yells a lot about it until Bellamy's sister, the hot one with the brown hair and blue eyes, tries to open the airlock.

Princess yells some more about _dangers of radiation_ and Bellamy yells back about _who the hell cares? we're going to die anyway_ until, when no ones looking, John opens the door and they're all exposed to The Ground.

First thought: it's beautiful. Second: _freedom_. He was the caged bird, and now he is free. He names the sky his own, says, _"This is my home now."_

Here, on The Ground, he is not John anymore. He is Murphy, Bellamy's right hand man. He is dangerous and he is terrible, frightening smirk on his face and dark, hooded eyes. He is seventeen years old but feels like seventy-three.

 


End file.
